Frozen Decay
by SoundGeare
Summary: Why did I ever touch that crown? I wish I'd never seen it, never found it. Then I might still have Betty... Simon/Ice King's videos, showing the gradual decay of his mind and his transformation. This is a bad summary, but it is a good story. -ONESHOT-


I hope you like this, my second foray into Adventure Time territory. I hope to do more stories based around Ice King and his tortured past. That's the type of thing I like, and I hope you do too. I wrote this story omitting a couple of details (I forgot about them until it was already finished), so this is written that Simon found the crown himself, and also I'm omitting Marceline's presence in Simon's life, because it wouldn't make sense.

* * *

The camera clicked on and began to record the palm of a hand.

"Are you sure it's on?"

"Yeah, just, uh, put it on the tripod."

The hand was pulled away to reveal a man sitting on a small couch, a golden crown cradled in his lap. Much nearer to the camera was a young woman who appeared focused on attaching the camera to the tripod.

The view of the camera began to rotate around 360 degrees as the woman screwed it onto the tripod.

Once it was secure, she went to the couch and joined the man.

"Hello, my name is Simon Petrikov, and this is my beautiful princess," he said with a grin, turning to the woman, "Betty"

As he said that, he leaned over and kissed her sweetly.

"Oh stop it," she said, her cheeks beginning to grow pink, her mouth curling into a smile, "Not with the camera watching…"

Simon giggled, "Oh fine, well anyway, what I really wanted to show you was this." He held up the crown staring at it with a gleam of wonder in his eyes.

"This is an artifact I found, according to some writings found nearby, it's called the crown of ice. It's very mysterious, no one seems to know what it was used for, or even who it belonged to. Well, they don't know anything besides a pseudonym the owner was said to go by, The Ice King. Sounds like a class A weirdo if you ask me."

Beside him, Betty looked over at Simon, watching him as he fell into an enthralled speech about every aspect of the crown. Her eyes twinkled fondly, her ears drinking in every word the man said.

Suddenly Simon paused in his explanation and turned to her, "Oh I'm sorry, am I boring you with all this?"

Betty smiled sweetly and shook her head, "I love listening to you talk about these things."

Simon smiled back at her, then his eyes seemed to flicker and he said with a grin, "Hey, my princess, have you ever met a king?"

She looked at him inquisitively for a moment before she seemed to understand. Her face broke into a wider smile.

"Hehe, here I come, Princess Betty…" Simon said, lifting the crown up dramatically and placing it upon his forehead.

At that moment, his eyes seemed to change. They shifted from their original brown, to pitch black; shrinking into small beady openings in the process. His brown hair seemed to lose its gleam and a few strands turned to a greyish color.

The blood drained from his face and he bared his teeth in a grimace as he turned to the horrified girl beside him.

Opening his mouth to speak, the beastly version of Simon said…

The video changed suddenly, as if that portion of the tape had been deleted and rerecorded.

Instead of the young couple, there was a singular elderly man sitting on the couch. He was doubled over crying, muttering to himself about how sorry he was.

Then, with a moment of sudden clarity, the greying man looked up at the camera and said, "I wish I'd never touched that crown, never found it. I'm so sorry."

The tape ended.

* * *

The camera clicked on, its blank image becoming a man. The man was sitting in a chair, his skin was pale, extremely so, and almost tinted blue. Bristly white patches were sprouting erratically on his face.

"Hello," the man said, his voice slightly shaky, "This is… Simon Petrikov… again."

He paused for a moment, looking at something outside the range of the camera's view. For a moment his resolve seemed to weaken and his chest shuddered with the weight of a suppressed sob.

"She's gone," Simon spat out, his eyes slowly becoming redder by the second. "Betty left, last night. I don't know where she went, she didn't say anything to me. Just… when I woke up this morning…she wasn't here. I…" suddenly he broke down and tears began to stream from his burning red eyes, making thin streams that flowed down his cheeks.

Simon brought up a shaking hand and rubbed the tears away, leaving behind only his scarlet eyes that stared directly at the camera unwaveringly.

"If you ever… watch this. Betty, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what I did, please believe me. Please…"

The tears returned and Simon curled over upon himself.

The rest of the clip went on like that, the pale man just crying and sometimes whispering the name Betty to himself.

After a few more minutes he got up and shut the camera off.

* * *

A greyish man sat on a stained couch. On his lap was a glimmering crown with a crimson jewel set in each of its three golden prongs.

"This is… me," the man said, his voice shaking as if with the mere strain of speaking, "Simon… Simon something… I don't remember anymore…"

Simon's gaze drifted away from the camera, floating around the room until it came to rest on the crown's golden surface.

"I… just needed to know. This… _thing_," he growled the word with such contempt that it his hatred for the object was made obvious, "It's inside my… inside my head. Even when I don't touch it, when its far away from me, all the way across the room."

Simon groaned, peeling his hands away from the crowns surface to press them against his withered temples. "I don't know if anyone else can… hear it. Hear its voice, like honey, so smooth and… No I don't want that… It offers me things, things I didn't think were possible… No, leave me alone," his voice was frantic now, the sentences slurring together sometimes, while other times he would stop speaking for seconds at a time and just stare off into space.

"I needed to know, can you hear it? Is it inside my head? Inside of… me? I don't know, am I going crazy? I can't tell…"

Simon's whole body shook. His teeth ground together both visibly and audibly. The crown in his lap seemed to emit a faint pulse, bending the air and shifting the light around it.

"No…" Simon moaned feebly, "I… don't… want…Betty!" he shrieked, "You took her! You stole her from me! Made me… arrgh!"

As if possessed by unbearable pain, Simon leapt from his seat and threw the crown across the room. It flew from the camera's field and its landing was evidenced by a loud tinny clamor coming from the other side of the room.

Mumbling to himself, Simon approached the camera and shut it off.

* * *

A man sat in the middle of the floor. The room was empty save for a golden crown lying opposite him. His eyes seemed to be focused on the reflective surface, taking in every inch of it.

His voice was low, barely audible, "You… lied before. Are you… why?"

As if he was receiving a response, the man nodded slowly. He murmured something to himself while still nodding.

"Are you… sure? Do you promise?"

More silence. In the distance the crackling sound of machine gun fire could be heard, but that was far away. In a few more moments it faded and was gone.

"Together…" the man murmured, almost inaudibly, "as one…"

Without warning, the man stood up from his place on the bare floor. He moved as if possessed, crossing the distance between himself and the crown with one step and picking it up.

The man stared at the thing in his hands like a venomous snake for a moment before placing it on his head.

He was still, yet frost began to form on the lens of the camera. In a few more moments the lens had been covered in a thin layer of ice so that the man was only a blurry silhouette.

The camera shut off.

* * *

The window was the only source of light in the room, and even that wasn't much. The grey light fell through the multi-paneled window. One pane was cracked, and another was completely empty of glass. Frost was forming on the remaining glass, along with the iron framework.

A man was sitting just outside the square of light cast by the outside. Upon his brow there was a golden crown, though it was barely visible in the gloom.

"I thought, maybe, you'd like to see it all, one more time. The end, Betty, it's… beautiful."

Through the window a snowy landscape could be seen. Other buildings were missing windows, and the pale powder had been blown through the openings and had filled the visible rooms. A few street lamps stood on the street. One had been knocked onto its side and lay battered on the snowy sidewalk.

The other two were frozen solid, ice covering them from their base to the flickering lightbulb in its perch.

The man sitting in the shade chuckled, muttering to himself about how beautiful it was. His hand twitched involuntarily for a moment, but only a moment.

At that moment the snow began to fall outside, coming down heavier than it had been.

Craning his neck around, the man grumbled to himself, "Control…"

The snow lessened.

From somewhere outside a rumbling could be heard. It sounded like ten thousand lions roaring. The sound of bending steel came, cracking asphalt. Through the window, an armored tank rolled into view. Its surface had been painted pale white in an attempt to blend in with the snow atmosphere.

The heavy cannon-like main gun swung around, knocking over one of the remaining two lamp posts that was in its way. The gun raised by a degree until it was aimed directly at the window.

The clicking of a few gears could be heard as the heavy bullet was loaded into its cylinder.

The man held an open hand into the air for a moment, watching it placidly before he crumpled it into a gnarled looking fist.

Around the tank, ice sprang up from everywhere at once, engulfing it. Already a few feet out of its barrel, the heavy bullet had been caught in midair.

More and more ice crept up and over the tank until it was invisible through the frost covered surface.

Snow fell down and covered the machine, burying it.

"It's so beautiful," the man muttered as he lowered the hand back down to his lap, "I wish you could see it too. So… beautiful."

* * *

I hope you enjoyed that. Marceline wouldn't make sense because I've left Simon/Ice King insane and alone in his house, and he meets Marceline sane while wandering.

Well, I hope you liked it, review to let me know how you feel.


End file.
